The White King

Revelry

Schwarz breathes heavily, his burning smile diminishing at an equal pace to the pure adrenaline pumping through his veins.

Slain, the Hokori falls upon the ground in a cloud of dust. Pulling his bladed fist out of the creature's skull, Schwarz leaps off of it while ignoring the blood soaking his entire right arm.

Everything hurt, but everything felt amazing at the same time. The pain, the energy, the power... It coursed through him as a tidal wave.

Schwarz breaks out into laughter, but it calms down gradually as the moment passes.

"I'm Novus, Novus Jade."

Schwarz turns to face the speaker: the man who'd helped defeat the lion.

"Yo, I'm-"

"Schwarz, yeah, I know..." he interrupts. "I... May have been watching you... For around an hour now..."

That's not creepy at all, Schwarz sarcastically remarks while the last of his mirth dies off.

"Why would that be, exactly?" Schwarz inquires, honestly more curious about that then anything else. His strength, speed, sudden appearance in the sky; all of it was very easily explained with magic.

Not casting, mind you. Schwarz may not be a real wizard, but his training under Nacah included its fair share of sensory training.

No... We're talking empowered muscle training, a technique only really well known in the West.

Magic was awesome, and basically all of your body could use it. Just as muscles get acclimated to more oxygen as you exercise, so too do they become adjusted to magic coursing through them.

Essentially, the man had to be active enough- like Schwarz- and either instinctive or well trained in the almost subconscious use of magic- unlike Schwarz.

Unlike muscles, though, magic didn't really have a limit to its highest potential, though it usually topped out after a few years of training. Growth didn't really stop there, necessarily, but it got a lot less noticeable.

Novus was clearly on the spectrum, somewhere near but not at the top, so it at least made a bit of sense for him to be near Lleterof.

Of course, the entire above thought process only took about a real time second.

"I... Well, I smelled Nacah's lunch," he says while scratching the back of his neck in awkward apology. "From there, I naturally found my way to you. I was, uh... Would it be counted as mirroring if I couldn't actually do it?"

"Probably," Schwarz notes while examining Novus. Unlike the rest of the party, his heritage wasn't something obvious, like horns. "Hey... What are you, exactly?"

"What do you mean?" he asks, raising an eyebrow and giving himself a once over in confusion.

"Your species? I'm a German Spitz," Schwarz declares, pointing to his ears with one hand and pulling his tail into view with the other. "You?"

"Oh, right... It's a bit more complicated than that," he lets out with a sigh. "When I was young, my antenna were cut off and used in some kind of 'special medicine'. I wasn't born with anything else."

Schwarz cringes slightly in apology. "I'm sorry, mate. I didn't know."

Novus waves off his concern, visibly not bothered.

"You did it."

The pair turn to the voice: Nacah.

"You could say that," Schwarz remarks with a smirk.

~~~~~

How did he do that?

Nua knew everything Schwarz could do, assuming he was as honest as he appeared, anyway, and...

Being able to walk on air was definitely not something he'd shown.

On it's own, Nua could totally accept that, but it wasn't alone; Schwarz had displayed strength well beyond what he'd shown in the beginning as well.

So he was either growing- fast, too- or lying.

Nua monitors their conversation carefully, listening in for anything pertaining to his abilities, but Novus seems apt to leave it unspoken.

His chance had already passed when the conversation left the fight... He'd need to ask about it later.

"You did it," Nacah says, bringing Nua's attention to him. A brief sidelong glance on Nacah's part reveals that he knows Nua is there, but he doesn't address it before looking away.

"You could say that."

Novus does a casual salute- pointer and middle fingers outstretched and pivoted away from the side of his head- and greets the newcomer.

"Yo, Jian."

Nacah narrows his eyes at that, though the emotion leading him to that remains hidden.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't mention him in my presence," Nacah almost hisses out.

Novus's smile diminishes, but doesn't quite go away. First impressions were important to him, apparently.

Less so to Nacah, but Nua could understand where he was coming from. Jian Bing was the creator of the White Tiger fighting style and the creator of the "Binatang Cakar", or "Beast's Claw"- quite possibly the strongest weapon of the Beast Kings.

Yet, despite those massive accomplishments and his own superiority over the other three Beast Kings, he died almost dishonorably to the Black King around sixty years ago.

The Pan Wars weren't actually that long ago in the worlds history, but the world is quick to move forward from the tragedies- the war itself and Jian's death both.

Though- and I ask this seriously- who just stands in front of a giant explosion?

Besides Meng Zhang, of course. He was essentially indestructible.

Regardless, it made sense why you wouldn't want to be essentially called an arrogant lunatic.

"Then what should I call you?" Novus asks, hoping to escape Nacah's wrath.

He succeeds.

"You may call me Nacah," he states calmly while taking a step back in silent acceptance.

Not a bad turn, certainly.

"So... How'd I do?" Schwarz asks, gesturing to the body of the Leo. "And I'm looking for actual criticism, so lay it on me."

Smirking, Nacah gives him exactly what he asks for.

"You were about as graceful as a myopic rhino who'd recently been smit with nausea while inside a cactus field."

Ouch, Nua thinks with a slight cringe. He'd been the one hurt, and he'd only thought to call him an i***t.

"-though, I must confess that you did well. While simpler than constructing a weapon, you did manifest your soul," he explains, pointing towards the sky. "When you leapt downward, your mind instinctively created a platform to brace yourself on. Smart, too."

Schwarz beams, though he quickly changes to just smiling back at him.

"Told you I could do it," he says confidently.

"Of course you did," Nacah remarks with the roll of his eyes. While Schwarz hadn't said that, he was probably willing to let him have that level of win.

"You ready to discover your Emblem?" Nacah asks Schwarz, though that brings pause to Nua.

What the hell is an Emblem?

Sure, emblems were a thing, but they were just logos. He had one- a black and orange cat tessellation filling a vertical ovaloid- but that wouldn't need to be discovered.

Well, technically it could be, but Schwarz already had one too. Excluding Nacah and the newly met Novus, he'd seen all of them.

Schwarz had four claw marks parting a white canvas, Octanus had the sun held down by chains on a blank sky, and Donn had a globe shape formed from water on a black background.

Perhaps he means Novus?

That wouldn't make any sense, but at least it didn't contradict what he knew.

"Yep," Schwarz replies with a broad grin. "When do we start?"

Or... Not...

"Now," Nacah says while leading the way out of the clearing.

Nua doesn't bother following them visually, but rather turns his attention to Novus. Tracking them down would be trivial if they only had a minute or two head start, after all.

It was just him and the green-haired martial artist.

With the others gone, Nua drops to the ground below with a muffled thud.

Novus turns to face the sound, but doesn't seem startled by his approach. While unfortunate in terms of intimidation, that wasn't Nua's goal for the moment.

"Yo."

"Yo."

A moment passes in silence, neither making a move, but Nua breaks it pretty much the instant it started to bore him.

"You lied."